Assume the Network Is Hostile (Zero Trust)

Why this matters

Perimeter security assumes the inside of your VPC is safe — zero-trust assumes it's already compromised. The principles (never trust, always verify, least privilege, assume breach) translate directly into cloud controls: identity on every hop, mTLS between services, and IAM scoped to single actions. Skipping zero-trust is how a leaked AWS access key turns into ransomware on your DB.

Demo

Inspect identity-aware access controls that replace network-level trust.

Try it yourself

1. Audit IAM and list every principal with *:* permissions — argue why each one violates least privilege.
2. Replace one long-lived access key in a workflow with Workload Identity Federation (or OIDC) and confirm rotation works.
3. Enable IAP or Conditional Access on a non-prod admin endpoint and verify the prompt fires from an unmanaged device.

References

• NIST SP 800-207 — Zero Trust Architecture
• Google BeyondCorp paper